Fragility
by Azdgari
Summary: A brief chronicle of Zira's life gradually unravelling and descending into insanity. Rather dark. Oneshot, altered ending to SP.


**fragility**

Zira's parents love her. They bring her into the world with joy and smiles and warmth. They watch her, bathe her, and teach their cub to walk and talk. Her coat is thick like her father's and chalky vanilla. She has her mother's crimson eyes. Zira is a fiercely intelligent cub, and her parents are proud.

* * *

She grows into adolescence as if it can't arrive fast enough, as if glaring at things and acting older will make it come on more quickly. She's too clever for her own good and much more clever than the other cubs. Her mother is sure that she'll outgrow her brusqueness, that they can teach her to be gentle. Her father isn't so sure. In reality, her father is scared. Not of Zira, but of what he thinks she might become, since he's seen the way she uses the other cubs to get what she wants. He talks to her, and even though she won't look at him, she listens. The next day, she lets Nala win in tag. Her father beams, and she is proud.

* * *

As if out of spite, adulthood is thrust upon Zira. Her father dies far away from her on an ill-fated hunting trip, not with a scream but with a sigh. The rest of the hunting party doesn't find him until hours later, after the scavengers of the plains have had their way. Zira doesn't understand why her father is dead. She refuses to believe it, but the new queen Sarabi wisely counsels that Zira not be allowed to see her father's carcass. Zira's father slowly fades away, and she bitterly reasons it was his gentleness that killed him.

Scar. He lounges on a sun charred rock, lightly sleeping. So sleek… elegant, and mercurial. Zira hesitates. She always knows what she wants, and takes it. But he's the brother of the king. She keeps to the shadows, speaks a little more quietly when he's around. One ghostly afternoon he spies her out of the corner of his eye, and they hold a stare for a moment until Zira backs down, her fur standing on end and her heart pounding with adrenaline.

* * *

"Please, Scar," Zira purrs, "Don't tell me that a lion like you has no interest in a mate."

It's just the two of them, two silhouettes against the dusk on an outcropping behind Pride Rock. Scar shifts his weight from paw to paw, then slinks over to Zira, circling her.

"You _have_ always been different than the other lionesses," Scar admits, sparks flying between their coats where he brushes up against her. The electricity drains Zira of whatever tenuous control she had over the situation, and he takes her on the blood orange rocks and in the dust, and in that series of instants it almost seems like love.

* * *

When Zira hears about Simba and Mufasa's death she tries to conjure up some feeling of sadness or empathy but neither of those have ever been her strong suits, and maybe she used them all up when her father disappeared and now there's just a hole somewhere inside her. Instead all she can conjure up is the image of her lover ascending to the throne, and when he does, she feels him filling that void.

"My dear," he explains, "It wouldn't do to split my power right now. The pride needs a strong leader, right now. One leader." He leans in close to her, close enough for her to feel his hot breath in her ear. "But you know that you are my love," he whispers. His words seem perfectly natural to her.

* * *

Nuka, fittingly, is the first cub born in Scar's reign. He bears the same dark chestnut fur as his father. Scar is present when it happens, his viridian eyes soaking up the scene, processing the gravity of the events before him. He knows what course of action will be prudent, and he even leans in and licks his newborn son.

The king interacts with his son less and less as he grows, because Scar sees that he will be neither an asset nor a threat. Nuka grows up ungainly with only a modest intellect and an ambition misplaced in pleasing his father.

* * *

A lioness named Mona leaves of her own accord under the cover of night a little over a year into Scar's reign, when the first pangs of hunger roll over the pride. Only a few lionesses know that she has gone, and when they never hear from her, or about her, they assume she has fallen prey to some misfortune or predator on the plains.

Zira hears the lioness leave and tracks her. She knows a threat to her king when she sees one. The lioness makes it two miles into the wilderness before she snares her leg in a root and sprains an ankle. She is headstrong… and careless. Zira comes across the younger lioness on her back, mewling and cradling her throbbing ankle. Mona looks up at Zira with wide eyes.

"My… I hurt my ankle," she explains lamely in a quivering voice. Everyone knows where Zira's loyalties lie. Zira says nothing. "You have to help me, you have to help all of us," Mona implored. "All of our lives are in danger, Scar's going to kill us all, one way or another. Think about Nuka!"

Zira strolls closer to Mona and lays a paw reassuringly on her exposed stomach. In the moonlight Mona's fur looks milky white and seems to ripple at Zira's touch. "Life is so fragile, you know." she purrs, stroking Mona's stomach with a claw. She envisions Scar's face. "One slip and it can… rip. "

The carrion birds circle, and Zira absentmindedly realizes why she never saw her father's body. She can't wait to hear Scar tell her how well she did.

* * *

Scar licks his chops in disappointment when he sees Vitani for the first time. "A daughter. How… charming," he mutters. He turns away to leave the birthing cave.

"Aren't you going to come be with your new child?" Zira stammers, staring at her mate.

"I think I shall retire to my chambers, actually," he replies, leaving Vitani breathless from childbirth and alone with her son and daughter. Zira can't believe that Scar doesn't want to be a part of the family, can't believe that he doesn't love her and Nuka and Vitani—and so she doesn't. She imagines that he is there beside her, and then the scene is perfect.

Months later he pushes a fearful young cub in front of Zira and proclaims it to be his son and heir. Nuka understands the situation well enough to be scared of his mother's jealous wrath, but the reality is even worse. Zira drowns the cub in the love she grew for Scar, and Nuka feels neglected, because he is. He grows close with Vitani.

* * *

Scar's body is mangled and devoured beyond recognition, but Zira still cradles what is left, staining her coat. It is a gruesome picture, and her cubs look away in disgust. To them, the living breathing lion was no father and the pile of entrails even less so.

Zira eyes Kovu wildly. "Kovu! _You are Scar's protégé!_" she exclaims, grabbing at him as if he might run away, which at that moment he wishes he could. "He would want revenge! And I will train you, Kovu, and he will live through us!" Zira's eyes glaze over; she is hysterical. Nuka tries to calm her down, but she swipes at him viciously. "We will kill Simba," she shrieks, shaking, "For _Scar!"_ Nuka and Vitani catch Kovu's terrified, frantic gaze from within Zira's grasp.

* * *

The river below her rages, the current running swift and rough with swirling eddies forming in the middle, dragging logs and shards of wood under the surface.

Her grip on the cliff face slips a few inches, and Kiara implores her to take the paw. Scar's face flashes before her, and her grimace turns to a smile as she reaches up to grasp Kiara's paw and slowly, painfully climbs her way up the cliff. When she's up to safety, Kiara says something she doesn't hear. All she can hear is Scar, debonair and loving and loyal as he was only to Zira, whispering in her ear.

"…_so fragile…"_

Zira closes the gap between the lionesses without a moment's hesitation, and by the time the Pridelanders reach the cliff, the river is all that remains.

* * *

**Written pretty quick****ly for a contest. Literally no idea about backstory accuracy, but what the heck. Hope you enjoyed reading it, even if it was a little dark. Cheers!**


End file.
